New Year's Resolutions

It’s that time of year again when many will make New Year’s resolution. The goals are usually notable: exercise more, spend less, eat healthy, etc. These are valid and noteworthy goals. Yet, we should remind ourselves that this is our temporary ‘home’ and our primary goal in life should be to reach heaven in the afterlife. Therefore, we shouldn’t forget resolutions for our walk in faith.

Experts claim that to successfully maintain resolution you need to be specific. For example, saying you will eat healthy is too vague. Determining to eat three helping of veggies daily targets the goal and is easier to achieve. Knowing that, let’s explore ‘resolutions’ for deepening our faith:

MASS ATTENDANCE: If your Mass attendance is sporadic at best this would be an excellent goal to strive for. Remember the Catholic Church requires you attend Sunday Mass and all Holy /Days of Obligation. Staying up late Saturday night to go to a concert or watch a sporting event is not a valid excuse for skipping Mass options per Sunday---including Saturday nights makes this easier to work around busy schedules. Yes, if you’re truly sick or truly in a blizzard or truly caring for someone that is sick, these area all valid excuses to miss Mass. But we should strive to attend as obligates each and every Sunday (or Sat. night) and all Holy Days of Obligation. If you already to this, GREAT! You’re one of the 25% of all Catholics that do?! Then perhaps a specific resolution for you would be to attend a mid-week Mass, Monday through Saturday, once (or more) times a week.

CONFESSION: Growing up in a Catholic school environment and within a devoted Catholic family, we went to confession once a month. This is a practice that I still strive to maintain as an adult. Sadly, often I can walk straight into the confessional with little or no wait. (No brag, just fact.) My dad, a cradle Catholic, tells me of boyhood years when the confession line was long, long, long. Has society ‘improved’ over the years regarding morality? Hardly?! This means the confessional is being neglected. Try to resolve to use it more frequently, every month or every other month. Again, there are many options available for times to attend and you can always request a private session with a priest. And remember, if you’re skipping Mass, this should be mentioned in the confessional each and every time BEFORE you receive communion.

FIRST FRIDAYS/FIRST SATURDAYS: In a future article, I will write specifically about these devotions. In brief, now I will mention them both as a possible resolution for your faith development. Both of these are critical for reparation for sin. A simple look at TV programming, the world news, theater/art/music, etc. Will show us a multitude of sins requiring reparation. Honoring these devotions is good for your soul and the soul of society.

A final note on resolutions. I see no “unique” specialness about making a commitment to improve your life effective January 1^st. Improving our spiritual lives should be a daily ongoing commitment we make ANY day of the year. And thankfully our God is a patient, loving, merciful God. Because when we fall, he is there waiting for us to resolve the amend our lives and do better. So when we break our commitments, we can always go back to the confessional and try again.

Let us all try to make 2016 a more HOLY year—for ourselves and those we encounter.